Tom took a deep breath as his fingers hovered over a computer keyboard and pressed ENTER. Amazing how the same simple command that he used to freeze the blood of his corporate clients could also be configured to unleash artful mayhem on a perfect summer day. One by one, a half dozen micro video cams switched to record mode, the glowing RECs indicating that the operation was being dutifully collected and cataloged for future reference and recruitment purposes. Tom knew that there would be Fourth of July fireworks at San Antonio’s Woodland Park, but his mission at this moment was to initiate shock and awe during the bright procession of the red, white, and blue children’s parade.
Tom surveyed the live feeds on his computer screen, each one focused on a different part of the parade route. They even had one set up on the promenade at River Walk, which would be packed with shopping-fatigued families and tourists gobbling their lunches as they took surreptitious snapshots of twenty-first century Texans: sinewy, bronzed couples flaunting their youth by the lake; soda-amped kids clenching bouquets of helium balloons; cart vendors hawking tacos and freedom dogs—while actual canines strained on their leashes to get a sniff of each other. None of them had the slightest inkling that dozens of subversives lurked in the trees and in the restrooms, behind the concession stands and in plain sight, waiting for the moment to step forward and reveal their true colors. A crowd was beginning to coalesce along the parade path: buzz-cut jocks in cargo shorts and flip-flops; suburban moms in droopy hats and sensible shoes; retired servicemen rolling up in their wheelchairs for a better view. And most importantly, TV crews from KSAT, WOAI, and KABB, overdressed and looking bored as they sipped bottled water and waited to tape a holiday spot for the five o’clock news.
On video cam one, the vanguard of the caravan came into focus: two clowns, a huge US flag stretched between them, skipping down the path, surrounded by squealing children and barking canines. Papier mâché busts of former US Presidents lumbered along on bunting-draped flatbeds. Not far behind, a high school marching band took its best shot at “America the Beautiful.”
Eighty miles away, in a nondescript residential section of Austin, Tom’s mother appeared in his room holding a tray with a turkey sandwich and potato chips. “I made you lunch, m’ijo,” she said.
Tom nodded without taking his eyes off the monitors. “Thanks, Mom. Just leave it on the table, okay?”
Sonia Ayana put the food down and shook her head disapprovingly. Tom’s lair was in the back of the house, separated from the rest of the dwelling by a long hallway with a bathroom that he had also claimed for himself. His walls were lined with several rows of bookshelves crammed with audio and computer equipment; outdated CDs, DVDs, vinyl records, and video games; assorted swag from free networking events; software programming textbooks; stacks of back issues of Wired; and dog-eared paperbacks of Cat’s Cradle, Neuromancer, and The Catcher in the Rye. In the center of the room, elevated on a plywood platform concealing power strips and cables, was a U-shaped command module of metal worktables piled high with CPUs, laptops, and high-definition LCD monitors. A doorless closet, an unmade bed, blackout shades over the windows, and a Steelcase mesh swivel chair completed the cyber-geek decor.
Sonia started to say something but checked herself. What was the point? When he was online, she didn’t exist; nothing existed except the computer. She worried that Tom’s obsession would rob him of a real life. How would he ever meet a girl if he didn’t have a job that took him outside the house? How could a grown man be content to sit indoors by himself all day and most of the night, unshaven and wearing the same clothes, the pale light from the screen commanding his attention like a demonic blue flame. She had managed well enough without a husband, supporting herself as a seamstress at a local clothing store, raising Tom as best she could, but the growing likelihood that she would never see a daughter-in-law, let alone grandchildren, wounded her with guilt that she had failed him as a mother. If only she had understood what was happening sooner, if she had been able to recognize the signs, she might have steered him onto a different path before losing him to the toxic attraction of that maldita machine.
Tom looked up from his cyber command center, alarmed to see his mother holding a sheet of paper, her eyes brimming.
“Mom, what is it?”
“It’s your tía, Lupe.” Sonia blotted her tears with an embroidered handkerchief. “I told you she was sick, so I sent her to the doctor like you told me. Now the bill came. And it’s twelve thousand dollars.”
“I thought she had insurance.”
“She does, but the insurance company won’t cover it. They sent Lupe a letter, but she couldn’t read it. I’m trying to help her, but they say the policy is no good.” Sonia took a step forward and held out the letter. “She’s a widow, all alone. She can’t pay this. Necesita ayuda.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Ma?”
“I don’t like to bother you when you’re in your room doing your electrical work.” Tom winced at her choice of words. To this day, when friends or relatives asked Sonia what Tom did for a living, she told them her son was an electrician. He had stopped trying to correct her. “If Chevo were here,” she lamented, “he would know what to do.”
Tom could feel a familiar pressure expanding in his chest. Chevayo Ayana was his father, the pneumatic engineer who disappeared in Alaska when Tom was five, who knew how to drill for oil through frozen mountains, and whose loss had torn a gaping hole in the lives of his wife and son, a vacancy so deep that sometimes Tom felt that his mother would be devoured by it. Just hearing the way she uttered his father’s name was like a poke from a sharp stick. He took the letter from his mother’s hands.
“Don’t worry. Tell Lupe I’ll take care of it.”
“How M’ijo?” Her expression was equal parts curiosity and concern. “Promise me you won’t do anything dumb.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. They’re the ones who just did something stupid. But right now you’ve got to let me work.”
Tom shut the door and turned his attention back to his computer. The shock troops for Operation Uncle Sam were standing by, waiting for his signal.
“Team leaders, hold positions,” Tom texted to the video cam operators. “Wait till they get a little closer.”
It had all started just a few months ago as a dare: an online acquaintance bet that Tom couldn’t get a hundred people to show up for a naked car wash fundraiser for the women’s track team at the University of Texas at Austin. Tom hacked into a dozen college sports chat rooms, posting an invitation for “filthy boys and dirty girls to drop their pants and show some skin for the team” by downloading an app that would use lewd humor and suggestive icons to point the way to their ultimate destination. The queue of scantily clad coeds that showed up the next day stretched for two blocks and made it onto the local news. It dawned on Tom that he had a gift for group activation. He knew how to rally the troops; he knew where to find them and how to entice them with clever clues and prizes; he could organize and orchestrate a mob like a maestro, conducting the crowd not with a wand but with software commands and augmented reality mobile apps that merged the real world with treasure maps and fantastical images.
There was a degree of danger in all this. Local law enforcement, getting its cues from the federal government, was taking a dim view of flash mobs and any other online mischief that suggested a terrorist threat, and new statutes against encrypted digital transgressions were being passed every day. Tom decided he needed a secure handle, a fake identity that would insulate him from snooping surveillance sentinels and rival hackers, both of whom he knew plenty about from his freelance duties for the Austin-based Internet security firm. No one, not even his top flash mob lieutenants, had ever met him or seen his face, and he would keep it that way. Even his voice was digitally filtered into a low-pitched snarl. The key was the collective, the spontaneous combustion of individuals joining for a common cause, working together as a single entity to make an indelible social statement. There could be only one name for the elusive alpha that controlled the hive mind, a moniker that succinctly captured the ephemeral spirit of chaotic cohesion: Swarm.
A message scrolled across the text window of his control dashboard.
Mobile 1: Swarm, the patriots are in position. Waiting for your signal.
Tom scanned the monitor one last time. “Okay, people,” he said. “Let’s show them what the land of the free really looks like!”
As the aircraft flew into the heart of the locust storm, Cara held on to her seat straps, hoping for a miracle. At first, PHAROH’s electric song was indistinguishable from the din of the propeller engine—then its frequency broke through the mechanical noise, pulsing with the deep sonority of a distressed cello fused with a piercing wail that made Cara hold her hands over her headset. Almost immediately, the thick curtain of locusts opened up and the crunching hail of buzzing bodies diminished.
“It’s working!” Eric shouted. “Professor Park, we freaking did it!”
Cara peered through the muck on the windows to get a better view, and what she saw lifted her heart. A bug-free bubble had opened up around the plane as the locusts lurched in tandem to evade PHAROH’s angry whine. The splattering had diminished to a few isolated pops, yet the mass of insects still surrounded them in every direction. It was like flying into the eye of a fluttering hurricane, the eerily calm center of a swirling vortex with walls made of insects. Cara was gripped with speechless wonder. The swarm was defending itself from PHAROH by creating an insulating pocket of space around the plane. The swarm had instantly adapted to minimize the disruption without changing course. Cara was incredulous, exhilarated, and disappointed all at once. What had just happened didn’t seem possible, yet …
“Holy shit,” Eric blurted. “The swarm is protecting itself by avoiding us!”
“Where are we, exactly?” Cara asked the pilot.
“We’re in Tanzania. Just south of the border with Kenya, in the Serengeti.”
“No, I mean exactly. I need to come back to this place on foot.”
The pilot grinned at Cara’s naïveté. “You can’t walk around the Serengeti, ma’am. The lions are not in a zoo.”
“I’m not a fool,” Cara said tartly. “I need the coordinates for where we encountered the swarm so I can examine specimens. Where’s the closest airstrip?”
“We’re a bit northeast of Ikorongo Game Reserve, ma’am. The closest airstrip is half a day’s drive from here, not far from a nice travel sanctuary.”
“Can we stay there tonight and hire a driver to bring us back to this spot in the morning?”
“I’ll radio them now, ma’am.”
She looked at Eric. “You can turn PHAROH off. We’re done for today.”
The Serengeti airstrip was a mile-long clearing of ragged grass, and the landing was more than a little bumpy. When they emerged from the six-seat aircraft, a blond man in pressed khaki shorts was waiting to greet them with cold drinks and biscuits arranged safari style on a folding table. The man introduced himself as Malcolm. He and his wife were the managers of Rawana Sanctuary, a high-end tented camp that catered to well-heeled tourists. During the ride to the camp, Malcolm gave them brightly patterned Masai blankets and horsehair swatters to keep the tsetse flies at bay, telling them that they were lucky to be in East Africa during the great migration.
“Watching the animals march north to Kenya is one of the world’s great blessings,” he told them before leaning solicitously toward Cara. “It’s a deeply emotional experience for me, and it would be my pleasure to personally take you out for a closer look before sunset.”
“No, thanks,” Cara answered, glancing at the gold band on his left ring finger. “I’ve seen it before. Anyway, we’re here for the locusts.” Noticing the look of dismay on the man’s face, she added, “We’re researchers from the United States, working with the United Nations. We came to help the farmers.”
“Ah, I see. Very good. Though I have to say I think you are way too attractive to be into bugs, miss.”
“Well, thanks, but I have to say that you look exactly right to get emotional with a wildebeest,” Cara replied, whipping a tsetse fly that had the audacity to land on her bare leg. In the backseat, Eric pulled the blanket up around his head to stifle a guffaw and fend off the buzzing pests.
Malcolm sat rigidly for a while, then turned to them and said, “The driver you requested will be here in the morning. Cocktails are at six, and dinner is at seven thirty.” He added that camp rules required them to be accompanied by a Masai warrior guard anywhere outside their tent after dark. When Cara asked Malcolm if he was serious, he didn’t answer.
The creature comforts of the camp, which included permanent tents with verandas, hardwood floors, electric lights, and hot running water, pleasantly surprised Cara. The place seemed a tad extravagant for a nonprofit researcher’s budget, but there was no other lodging available on such short notice. Taking advantage of the unscheduled break, Cara rebooked their flight out of Arusha for the next day, made some notes in her journal, showered, and dressed for dinner. A few minutes later, she was lounging on the domed top of a giant boulder near the main building with Eric and Laura, Malcolm’s wife. When Laura told them that her husband was feeling ill and would take his dinner alone in their tent, Cara and Eric exchanged a knowing glance.
An African waiter served them gin and tonics from a portable bar and offered them salted cashews as the sun ballooned into a giant red disk over the plains. Cara watched as Eric recorded the scene with his phone and uploaded it to the cloud.
“Eric told me about your experiment with the locusts today,” Laura said pleasantly. “I’ve never seen these horrible creatures before. If they eat all the grass, the animals will starve, and this”—she held her hands up to indicate the estate—“will be all gone. I’ve been praying that someone would come and help us stop this plague.”
Cara sighed. “I’m afraid we’re a long way from being able to do that.”
“I’ve been told the locust migration is a result of global warming,” Laura said, offering them sweet seed cakes.
“Could be,” Eric answered. “It’s happening in other places, too. Australia and even Argentina.”
A Masai man appeared at the top of the rock lookout. “Dinner is being served, madam,” he announced.
The food was delicious, and Laura proved to be an entertaining hostess, amusing them with stories about monkeys sneaking into the gift shop and giving the tourists a scare when they went in to try on hats. Malcolm, she informed them, was a South African whose parents had left the country when Nelson Mandela was elected to the presidency. Laura had met her future husband when she was studying at the London School of Economics. “My dream was to work in international development, but my persuasive spouse had other plans,” she said wistfully. “It gets a little lonely sometimes, but to be able to live here so close to the animals is a real privilege.”
On cue, their plates were whisked away and their glasses refilled with Cape Town pinot noir. The occasionally sluggish Wi-Fi notwithstanding, the whole place had a sumptuous lost-empire atmosphere. Laura wiped her mouth with a napkin and peered at a large black shape lurking near the driveway.
“What’s that?” Eric asked.
“Oh, that’s Joe.”
“Joe?”
“We made the mistake of feeding him some leftovers, and now he thinks he’s part of the family,” Laura explained. “Just make sure you don’t get too close. Cape buffaloes can be unpredictable.”
It must be nice, Cara wanted to say, to live in this oasis of colonial accoutrements, graciously holding court over an ever-changing guest list of intriguing strangers. Out there, beyond the bronze hills and the big game parks, the continent was reeling from epidemics, famine, and civil war. But here, within the mahogany gates of the sanctuary, even dangerous beasts were treated like house pets.
After dessert, Eric, who had been exchanging glances with a pair of young women at another table, excused himself and took his coffee into the lounge, where the diehards were gathering for a nightcap.
Laura tiled her head in Eric’s direction. “Your protégé’ is rather adorable—and smart too. Our wireless was acting up, and he was able to fix it in about five minutes.” She propped her hand under her chin. “It must be nice to have such a handy young man around to help you with your work.”
“Yes, it is.”
Cara rose to leave, and Laura repeated Malcolm’s warning about never going anywhere on the property unescorted. Sure enough, when Cara got to the door that led to the grounds, a uniformed guard was waiting with a spear in one hand and a flashlight in the other. As she followed her protector down the gravel path under a blazing canopy of stars, she was grateful to know that the Masai were famously fierce hunters, fully capable of taking down a big cat if necessary.
Back in her tent, Cara undressed and climbed under the mosquito net. On the nightstand next to the bed, she found a wrapped candy and a single page of text mounted on handmade paper: a fable by Lala Salama, “How the Zebra Got Its Stripes.” It was a fanciful tale about how the Creator had originally made all animals with the same black skin. Deciding this monochromatic scheme was not lively enough, the Creator held a kind of costume party at which the animals could choose their own patterns and colors. But a voracious zebra stopped en route to gorge on grass, making him plump. When he arrived at the costume party, all that was left was a white suit, which he gladly put on. But the suit ripped to ribbons on his fattened body, letting his black skin show through. Since the suit was now too tight to take off, the zebra was forced to wear it forever, so his hide bears the black-and-white stripes of his gluttony to this very day.
Cara put the story aside. She knew that the zebra’s suit had nothing to do with grass or greed. It was part of a protective camouflage that kept predators at bay. It allowed them to merge and disappear into the herd behind the interlocking patterns. The reason the zebra still wore his black-and-white suit was that it had enabled his ancestors to survive and mate and pass their genes on to the next generation of striped zebras, and so on and on for millions of years. Cara knew it was natural selection, not the Creator, who had given the zebra its stripes—and also the hippo’s ebony skin that merged with the water and mud, the leopard’s spots that helped him hide under leafy trees, and the cheetah’s pale fur, perfectly matched to the boundless fields of golden grass.
The mind-boggling diversity of wildlife in Africa, the kaleidoscopic spectrum of patterns, shapes, and sizes, was both astounding and reassuring. After all, it was the genetic diversity required by evolution that had persuaded Cara to become a biologist in the first place. Growing up as the daughter of Korean immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area, she had wondered why people looked different, why some people had black hair and others had blond, why some were short and others tall, why some eyes were slanted and others round. Even if she had been raised Christian instead of Buddhist, she would have wanted to know why the Creator had decided that one color of skin for all the animals wasn’t good enough. What was his reason for giving the animals different clothes? And why was nature’s actual wardrobe so extravagantly varied and unpredictable?
It was a conundrum that dogged Cara until the day she sat in an introductory biology class at UC Berkeley and discovered—in an epiphany that was akin to a professor’s pulling a rabbit out of his hat—that evolution requires genetic variation. Nature’s fashion show, she was fascinated to learn, has the widest range of choices possible, the better to adapt to a constantly changing environment. Being different isn’t a flaw—it is a requirement for the survival of the species, for the only way to make sure that the fittest survive is to make sure that there are as many different kinds of potential winners as possible. In the great gamble of evolution, it turns out that Mother Nature likes to hedge her bets.
It was then and there, with her pen poised above her ruled spiral notebook in a dumbstruck haze of revelation, that Cara knew she had found her life’s work. She immersed herself in Charles Darwin’s seminal texts and H.B.D. Kettlewell’s nineteenth-century studies of black-and-white English moths. It wasn’t long before she was following in the hallowed footsteps of behavioral ecologists like Deborah Gordon, whose work with harvester ants at Stanford showed that experiments with insect colonies in the field and in the lab could provide material evidence of emergent collective behavior in ordinary insects. By carefully documenting the activities of colonies and how the actions of individual ants produce elaborate communities and physical structures, Gordon had begun to bridge the gap between mathematical models of complexity theory and of the self-organizing abilities of living things, unveiling an entire new paradigm for understanding the genetic machinery behind the development and growth of social networks, cities, and even human brains.
For Cara, this groundbreaking fusion of mathematics and biology was much more than a powerful lens through which to view and understand all of nature. It was also an exhilarating source of hope. If intelligence was distributed across groups of insects, people and programs in ways that we had only begun to understand, then why couldn’t it be harnessed to fight disease, poverty, and war? If the intrinsic wisdom of crowds included and transcended any single intention or piece of information, if civilizations were the product of collective awareness expressed and amplified by the genetic fabric of human society, why couldn’t it be harnessed and directed to do something good?
Cara’s drowsy ruminations were momentarily interrupted by a guttural groan emanating from just outside her tent. It reminded her of the sound a cat makes when it’s trying to cough up a hairball, but much lower and louder. A Cape buffalo? Or an elephant? Impalas didn’t sound like that, did they? There it was again: a mournful, heavy huffing of air moving though spacious lungs. Trying to communicate what? A cry for attention or a warning? Should she be worried? Didn’t the Masai guards sleep outside the guest tents at night? Cara turned off the light and shut her eyes.
Cara’s mind resisted her body’s need for rest. In the morning, she would know if the experiment was a valid contribution to the study of emergent behavior in locusts or if it had fallen short of her primary objective, which was to help African farmers stave off famine and protect the habitats of some of Earth’s most incredible creatures. The proto-physician in her still wanted to help people, especially those who had no one else to protect them. How many farmers had lost their crops today? How many animals had lost their favorite grazing pastures? How could the zebras get fat and earn their stripes if there were no more luscious pastures of grass? Once the vegetation that nourished the herbivores was gone and the food chain broken, even the predators at the top of the ladder would eventually falter and starve. But why was some part of her alarmed by the way the swarm had evaded their sonic trap? What was the deeper significance of the day’s events that still somehow escaped her, like the dodging, startlingly intelligent blizzard of insects whirring in her thoughts?
The next time the lion’s roar rang out across the camp, Cara was fast asleep.